Brand Recognition

I am residing in Turkey, and was sitting and drinking a latte at my favorite coffeehouse near a popular tourist intersection. On my way to get the latte, I noticed a T-shirt with an American Flag and another with an Apple logo.

I decided to play a little game I call 'Count The Logos'. In about 30 minutes, I watched all the people walk by, an even mix of Turks and foreigners. If you're into marketing foreign brands in Turkey, especially American Brands, this blog post is for you.

Here is a list of the brands I recognized and the total count for those logos:

#1 - Adidas - 43 items of clothing, mostly shoes with a random shirt/sport trousers/bag thrown in.

The local boys at the coffee shop were enjoying this game and helping me spot logos. At the end I gave them the count and they said 'Adidas is popular because they are the cheapest'. I'm guessing they mean cheapest of the Big Brands as I see non-mainstream shoes or knock-offs that are incredibly cheap.

#2 - Nike - 42 items of clothing, mostly shoes with a few shirts here and there.

Interestingly enough, Nike and Adidas were nearly tied for the top place.

#3 - Converse - 28, all shoes except for two t-shirts

There may have been  more as I saw many 'Converse-like' shoes, but if I didn't see a logo, I didn't count them.

From here, the counts drop dramatically.

#4 - Reebok - 16
#5 - Puma - 7

The top five places are all Shoe/Sport manufacturers. Hmm...

#6 - Lacosste - 6

These were all shirts with the little crocodile head logo on them

Tied at # 7

The American Flag - 5
Levi's - 5
LC Waikiki - 5

I did see a flag with Mickey Mouse on it, so I counted the logo for each one, and at this point I consider the Stars and Stripes an American Logo. LC Waikiki is the only major turkish brand I recognized. There may have been many pairs of Levi's Jeans, but I only counted T-shirts with the logo on it as I couldn't really ensure the brand logo on jeans.

Tied at #10

McDonalds - 3
FILA - 3

McDonald's brand was on cups of ice cream. McDonalds Ice Cream is heavily marketed here and they have many different  types of sundaes and other things here that they don't have in the USA.

Tied at #12

Hollister - 2
New York - 2
California - 2
Mickey Mouse - 2
Minney Mouse - 2
Los Angeles - 2
Hello Kitty - 2

Now we're getting into non-clothing brands. The US cities and states (NY/NYC/LA/CA) are a brand, make no mistake, these are the most recognizable US places to every non-american.

The rest all had a single showing:

Hollywood
Miami Heat
Apple
Smurfs (Papa Smurf)
Pacifico
Sketcher
America (Just the word, no flag)
Polaris
Legend
US Navy
Heritage
Batman
Coca-Cola
Unlimited Eagles
'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' lyrics
Loft
Replay
Miller (beer)
Native American Chief Headress
American Football (Mauraders??)
Scarface
Spiderman
Grand ol Opry
Pacific Area
'Rock and Roll never dies'
Reno
Gold Rush
No Fear
Ford
Super Mario
Jansport
Newport Beach
Las Vegas
New Balance
Popeye
Madonna
Ferrari

I'm probably biased towards the American  brands, but to be fair there were a LOT of American Brands.